


A foolish wit

by Petra



Category: Slings & Arrows
Genre: Catharsis, F/M, Ghosts, M/M, Multi, Playwright, doggerel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-22
Updated: 2008-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-18 19:46:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7327999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sloan doesn't know a lot about the theatre, but he sure as hell knows more about real life than the dead guy who's been talking to him lately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A foolish wit

**Author's Note:**

> [](http://goluxexmachina.livejournal.com/profile)[goluxexmachina](http://goluxexmachina.livejournal.com/) suggested this collaboration. She and [](http://carla-scribbles.livejournal.com/profile)[carla_scribbles](http://carla-scribbles.livejournal.com/) cheered me on while I wrote. [](http://mmebahorel.livejournal.com/profile)[mmebahorel](http://mmebahorel.livejournal.com/) beta read it. All remaining errors and misapprehensions are mine.

[Audio version](http://nwhepcat.dreamwidth.org/1206402.html) by [](http://nwhepcat.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**nwhepcat**](http://nwhepcat.dreamwidth.org/).

*

Sloan doesn't recognize most of the people in the bar other than Ellen and Geoffrey, who book it out of there early and together. They're both way dumber than people that smart have any right to be, but maybe they can work something out. They fucking should.

Tuesday's kind of nervous being there, and Sloan doesn't want to stay super-long, but there's this one guy at one of the tables who looks like nobody's ever going to talk to him. Sloan grins at Tuesday and says, "Just a sec, babe," then goes over to the lonely guy. "Hey," he says, and then he figures out why he knows the guy's face. "You were Banquo's ghost, right?"

The guy gives him this completely blank look for a second. "Yes," he admits.

"I wanted to ask -- how come you're his ghost, when he's black and you're not?" Sloan shakes his head. "I didn't get that."

"It's complicated," the guy says. "I believe your young lady is trying to get your attention."

Sloan looks up, and Tuesday is giving him this really impatient glare. When he looks back, the Banquo's ghost guy is totally gone. "Well, shit."

*

"Whoa," Sloan says, and puts up his fists, like some guy who can break into his apartment in a light colored suit without getting a smudge on him is going to be afraid of him. "Who the fuck are you?"

The guy bows -- seriously bows -- and it makes Sloan think of Ellen, and he's not going to do that anymore. He promised himself. "Oliver Welles," the guy says. "And don't bother changing your locks -- I'm dead." And when he looks at Sloan again, Sloan recognizes him -- he was Banquo's ghost. Which doesn't mean he's actually dead.

Sloan crosses his arms. "Yeah? Prove it."

The guy disappears. Not, like, runs away, but disappears like one blink he's there and the next, nothing.

Sloan rubs his eyes. "Shit."

*

Oliver shows up again a couple of hours later. "I'd rather be haunting Geoffrey," Tennant, he doesn't bother saying -- Sloan rubs the knuckles of his throttle hand, remembering -- "but he seems to be -- out of touch at present."

"That fucking sucks," Sloan says, and he'd pat Oliver on the shoulder but you can't actually do that with a ghost, so he just nods. "Tuesday stopped answering my phone calls a week ago."

"Tuesday?" Oliver asks, frowning.

"My ex-girlfriend. The one after Ellen."

Oliver winces hardcore at her name. "Ah."

Which is when Sloan starts seriously wondering what the hell this guy's doing haunting him instead of her. Maybe Geoffrey's busy, but what the hell does Sloan have to do with anything? "Why don't you go, you know, shake her windows or something?"

"We didn't part on amicable terms."

Sloan stares at him and shakes his head. "What?"

Oliver rolls his eyes. "Jesus. We fought. Right before I died. And for a long time before that."

"Fuck," Sloan says, sympathetically.

"So she's unavailable, and Geoffrey --" Oliver sighs.

"Man, you've got it really bad, huh." Sloan grins at him.

Oliver gives him a look like he's wearing his underwear on his head instead of just telling it like it is. "What do you mean?"

"You should be careful." Sloan shakes his head, but he's still grinning. "Last time I got it that bad it took me a lot of explaining to get my bike back."

From the way Oliver's frowning, it's pretty obvious that this means about as much to him as "We didn't part on amicable terms" did to Sloan. So he tries again. "I mean, I proposed to Ellen, and -- yeah, stop giving me that 'you dumbshit,' look, I know, I know. But at least I tried before she took her psychic phone off the hook, you know?"

Oliver shakes his head again. "It wouldn't work."

"'cause you're dead?" Sloan sighs. "I guess it's kind of too late. You did, like, tell him, right?"

And he believes Oliver's dead -- the whole poof-gone thing was a pretty good clue -- but now he gets the ghost thing, because the look on the guy's face is just -- ow.

"Well --" Sloan rubs the back of his neck. "You think he knows? Because -- okay, I saw that Hamlet thing a couple times, and Macbeth, and those were pretty fucking awesome and I don't even speak old English, so I figure whatever he had to do with all that shit, he's gotta be pretty smart, right? But not --" He waves his hand. "He didn't even get how fucked up he was over Ellen until I told him, dude, you're fucked up."

"It's not old English," Oliver says, after a while, like Sloan really cares. "And -- no. I don't think he knows."

Sloan whistles softly. "How can a guy that fucking smart be that fucking stupid?"

Oliver laughs like it hurts. "I wish I knew," he says, and then he disappears again.

"No wonder he took the phone off the hook," Sloan says, to empty air.

*

Sloan's looking for change in the sofa when he hears this prissy little "ahem" and figures he only knows one person who makes that noise and doesn't knock or say hi first. "Hey, Oliver," he says, and pulls his hand out of the couch. There's a little pile of coins on the coffee table, and with a few more -- score, a toonie -- they're going to turn into pizza.

"Prospecting for gold?" Oliver asks.

"Just trying to save a little cash." Sloan digs out another handful. "Do you eat?"

"When the mood strikes."

Which sounds like "Sure." "Let me guess." Sloan puts his chin in his hand and looks Oliver over, putting on a big thinking thing. "Mushrooms?"

Oliver laughs and sits on the couch. The cushions don't move. "I can't exactly chip in. But yes."

"We can do that."

Once Sloan has ordered the pizza -- half mushrooms, half pepperoni and onion -- he tosses the phone onto the table. "So what do you need, anyway?"

Oliver sighs -- the kind of sigh Ellen does when she's really pissed and about to fake-apologize. The kind that carries all the way back to the back of the auditorium. "I wish I knew."

Sloan shakes his head. "Maybe -- just, you know -- thinking out loud -- you should start by telling everybody the stuff you didn't tell them before you got dead. Like 'I love you, Geoffrey,' and 'I'm really sorry, Ellen,' and 'I wish I was a better person' and shit like that."

Oliver crosses his legs. "I wish it were that easy."

"It totally is -- once you get him on the psychic hotline. 'I love you, man,'" Sloan says. "How bad is that?"

"If it were that simple, I would have said it decades ago."

"It's not like supercalifragi-- whatever. Or Shakespeare." Sloan sorts through his change. "You can quote him, right?"

Oliver purses his lips. "Of course."

"So -- go for it." Sloan spreads his hands. "Language of love, poetry -- fuck, you gotta know better words for it than me."

"It's not that simple." Oliver sighs. "I can't -- just say that. Whatever 'that' is."

Sloan spins a quarter on the table. "So write a letter."

Oliver throws up his hands. "This is hopeless."

And he disappears.

"Fuck, man," Sloan says. "I hate mushrooms on my fucking pizza. You'd better come back soon."

*

"It's in the fridge," Sloan says when Oliver shows up the next day over a late breakfast. Protein shake and off to the gym as soon as he's done with Oliver.

"I'm not going to march myself over there and babble at them," Oliver says, and he gets the pizza out of the fridge. Pretty good for a ghost.

"I was thinking," Sloan says.

He's kind of expecting Oliver to say, "I thought I smelled something burning," like his dad would if Sloan said that, but Oliver just waves a piece of the cold, mushroom-tainted pizza. "Yes?"

"Well. You're all into this drama stuff, right? And so are the people you really need to talk to, right?" Sloan spreads his hands. "So -- you write a play and give it to them." He claps his hands. "No talking, no just spitting out that l-word shit."

Oliver goes even paler -- like maybe he's trying to disappear already. "I can't."

Sloan snorts. "It doesn't have to be high fucking art -- doesn't have to be, you know, Shakespeare. But at least it'd be --" he shrugs. "On their level. Right?"

"I couldn't possibly," Oliver says, but he's not fading, and he's frowning like he's actually thinking about it. "Besides, he's much better off with blank verse than modern dialect, and I'm hopeless at meter."

Only one 'he' that could be. Dude's got one fuck of a crush going.

"Meter?" He doesn't say "like parking meter?" because obviously not, and Oliver thinks he's dumb enough without making moron suggestions.

Oliver waves his pizza like a conductor. "Ba-DUM ba-DUM ba-DUM ba-DUM ba-DUM, you know, the way poetry works."

"Huh." Sloan frowns and taps his fingers on his leg for a while, counting and thinking about plays and Ellen and not getting haunted by gay weird ghosts anymore. "I could help you out."

Oliver sets down his pizza. "Could you." Like he doesn't believe it -- but if he totally didn't believe it, he'd stop showing up to talk to Sloan.

"Sure. I mean, I'm not real good at free-stylin', but if I can write it down, I can make the rap flow." Sloan grins. "Not like your homeboy Dub-Shakes, but I can tell a story."

He doesn't mean to make Oliver choke on pizza and wink out, but it's good timing. Places to go, iron to pump.

*

"The trouble with this is that you know nothing about plays at all," Oliver says, leaning on Sloan's table like he's been there all day.

"Yeah, but you do." Sloan shrugs. "So you tell me, and I write it -- or I can get you, like, a pen and some paper."

Oliver closes his eyes like he's getting a headache. "Somehow I doubt a notebook would be sufficient. If you only knew the extent of the notes I left regarding _Macbeth_ \-- to no avail."

"Avail?"

Oliver throws up his hands. "This is hopeless. Completely hopeless. You don't even speak English."

Sloan frowns at him. Even though he's pretty sure it's just because Oliver's pissed off about being dead, it's not fucking true. "Fuck you. You want help here, or not?"

"Yes," he admits, and sighs. "Perhaps the collaboration will improve your vocabulary."

Sloan grabs a pen and -- okay, so he bought a notebook, he figured there'd be this ghost guy hanging around and at least he could do something. "Maybe it'll make you less of a fucking prick."

Oliver laughs at that and sits on the edge of the table. "Unlikely."

"So, we're writing a play." Sloan looks at the blank page. "What's it about?"

"Well." Oliver drums his fingers on the table, then starts waving his hands around like he's playing with dolls or something in midair. "The play is clearly about a young -- well, aging but still attractive -- man, his struggles to find true intimacy in life, and the woman who shuts him out at every turn."

"Okay." Sloan writes down "Geoffrey" on the left side of the page, and "Ellen" on the right. "So basically, this actress tells this actor to fuck off, and the actor --" he shrugs. "He falls for his director?"

Oliver winces. "That would be entirely too on the nose."

Sloan raises his eyebrows. "Hitting something on the nose is bad?"

"Yes." Oliver blows out his breath. "It would be -- no."

"Even if they're called, like, Joseph and -- Helen. Or something." Sloan waggles his eyebrows.

"Jesus." Oliver pinches the bridge of his nose. "I can't believe I'm discussing this with you."

"Take a deep breath -- I mean, if it helps." Sloan shakes his head. "I thought the point of this was to put it all in a play so they'd get the message. And Geoffrey's not really good at picking up the obvious, right? So --"

Oliver taps Sloan's notebook and glares at him. "It would be far too obvious to have some character who actually resembled me in this farce."

"Then what's the point of doing it? Fuckin' A, Oliver, you know he's --" Sloan waves his hand. "Kinda dumb."

"I know nothing of the sort. I merely said that normal interactions would be lost on him, but this is a form he'll understand." Oliver let his breath out in a huff. "I can't imagine anyone would have any interest in a plot presented so baldly."

Sloan rolls his eyes. You'd think a dead guy would be a little less -- dumb. But maybe if he was smarter, he wouldn't be a ghost. "You can't, like, sweep him off his feet, 'cause you're dead, but you could totally write someone in who can. I mean, if you don't want him ending up with Ellen."

Oliver wrings his hands. "It would be unfair to suggest that she's not right for him."

"Fuck," Sloan says, nodding, because even though he's got his own stuff to deal with about Ellen, Oliver's not wrong.

"-- but --" Oliver sighs.

"But you wanna." Sloan scrubs his hand through his hair. "Look, I gotta get to the track. You make up your mind about who's getting in with who, here --"

"Whom."

Like it matters, but if they're supposed to be working together, he can try. "-- whom's getting in with who --"

Oliver's pressing his fingers on his temples. Do dead guys get headaches? "No, whom is the object. Who is getting in with whom."

Which doesn't help, and it doesn't matter anyway. "Right, well, when you make up your mind, tell me, okay? I'm gonna work on the first coupla scenes while I get ready for the race."

*

Sloan doesn't get another supernatural howdy for a couple of days, which is okay because he's got two races back to back and stuff to think about. So when Oliver shows up, looking kinda nervous, he says, "So I did a little, um, reading, and I started your lines."

He's kind of expecting Oliver to complain that he's not supposed to be in the play at all, but he just squints at Sloan's notes for a minute and says, "Perhaps you should read them to me."

Sloan laughs. Oliver's used to people who can actually do this shit, and he so can't. "Sure, but I'm not -- well, you know."

"Of course not," Oliver says. "But under the circumstances, we have to make allowances." He waves his hand. "Go ahead."

Sloan clears his throat and holds up one hand like real actors do in the movies. He reads:  
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?  
Right, thou are really fucking awesome, too,  
And pretty cute. I'm sad 'cause you're not gay  
But maybe if you tried, we'd make it through."

Oliver doesn't say anything for a long time. He's staring at Sloan with his mouth open a little bit like he doesn't know what the hell to say. Eventually he comes out with, "You were reading Shakespeare."

"Fuckin' right," Sloan says. He'd had a heck of a time finding it -- had to ask a librarian, and what the fuck was up with putting plays with nonfiction? They weren't true, right? "You guys are all so hot on him I figured, pretty good place to start, huh? So what d'you think?"

"It's very --" Oliver waves his hand. "He would never believe I had a hand in it if I let that quatrain stand, that's for certain."

Sloan decides right then not to ask what a quatrain is. Ever. "I just started. I mean -- yeah, it doesn't sound like you exactly, but it's what you want to say, right?"

Oliver turns white. So pale that Sloan would worry about him except he's dead. "I have to go."

Sloan glares at the place Oliver was. "Fuckin' coward," he says, but he doesn't really mean it that much.

*

Three drafts in, Sloan throws his notebook at and through Oliver. "I'm not taking out your whole fucking speech in one-two, dammit." If they have to have this fucking argument again, he's calling a fucking exerciser, or whatever they're called.

"It's too florid." Oliver waves his hands and pauses when Sloan gives him a blank look. "You can't put everything out there in the second scene, or there's no play. Worse than that, there's nothing to damned well analyze. The whole point in devising this in the first place was to avoid putting things in stark, unavoidable words. Even Geoffrey knows what 'I love you' means."

Sloan folds his arms. "And it'd fuckin' kill you to say it and get it the hell over with, right? Because you're just that crazy in love with him that who the hell knows, maybe you'd find, like, eternal peace if you just got it the fuck off your chest. And then you'd stop bugging me."

"It's possible," Oliver admits.

"You scared?" Sloan frowns at him. "'cause it can't actually kill you, ghost-man."

"Merely mortify me partially with embarrassment, which I've no wish to feel." Oliver fidgets with his cuffs. "I'm aware, but that's not encouraging."

"So you can't fucking stand having the guy who's not you tell not-Geoffrey he's crazy about him." Sloan shakes his head. "You wanted to do this play thing."

Oliver picks up the notebook and offers it to him. "If you just avoid using the word -- love --"

Sloan tries smacking him with it and this time it works. "Jesus fuck, Oliver, that's the whole fucking point."

Oliver throws up his hands. "It's out of character."

"For who?" Sloan opens the notebook. "What I got here is a story about Joe and Ellen and Orson, and it doesn't say a damn thing about you. And Orson is a fucking dude in a play that I'm writing, and he's what I say he is."

"You know it's not that simple." Oliver presses his lips together. "Your creative process is entirely too based on real people and events for you to ignore them at this juncture."

"Oh, fuck you." Sloan shakes the notebook. "My creative fucking process is to get you to fucking talk a little. Even if I have to call you Orson and make everything lambic pentathlon."

Oliver smacks his hand on the table. "I've talked more to you than I ever wanted to, you stupid boy."

Sloan loses it a little -- not like he expects Oliver to be nice, but there's mean and then there's nasty. "Why do you gotta be such a jerk?" Sloan throws the notebook over his shoulder. "What the fuck do you want here? I'm typing this draft and I'm taking it to the fucking theatre --"

"God, no," Oliver says, holding up his hands. "It's not finished."

"It fucking is. I'm fucking done with it -- and if you're gonna call me stupid, I'm fucking done with you, too." Sloan crosses his arms. "So go haunt somebody else. I got typing to do."

Oliver leans on the wall and sulks. "You could make it better."

"Maybe you could if you stopped being a dead asshole." Sloan shakes his head. "I'm seriously done with it. Three drafts is a lot."

"Do you have any idea how many drafts the average play goes through before production?" Oliver asks, and it's just another way of calling him stupid.

"Nobody's gonna put this play on," Sloan says, and goes over to his computer. "That's not what it's fucking for, and it's not long enough."

"Length isn't its worst flaw," Oliver says, following him.

"What is, then?"

Oliver shakes his head. "Consistency of language, from a director's point of view -- and honesty, from mine."

Sloan grins at him. "Well, fuckin' A, I guess it's done then. Gimme five." He holds up his hand.

Oliver shakes it after giving him a worried look.

*

"I'm busy, Anna," Geoffrey says when Sloan knocks on his half-open office door.

Anna, right next to Sloan, says, "It'll only take a moment."

Geoffrey looks up, and fuck, he's wrecked. "Hey," Sloan says, and offers him the stapled script. "I, uh --" he glances at Anna. "Can I talk to you for a sec?"

Anna looks from him to Geoffrey, who shrugs, and leaves, shutting the door behind herself.

"What can I do for you?" Geoffrey asks. He hasn't taken the script yet.

"One of your old buddies figured you might like this," Sloan says, and winks at him.

It doesn't mean shit to Geoffrey. "You know one of my 'old buddies'?" he asks. "Apart from Ellen, that is?"

"Yeah." There's a picture of Oliver up on the wall and Sloan jerks his chin at it. "Oliver, uh -- well, I know he's dead, but --"

Geoffrey puts his head in his hands. "Jesus, no."

"Sorry, I know you were close and shit." Sloan sets the script down in front of him. "We were kind of working on this play, is all."

Geoffrey looks up at him like he's talking Japanese. "Before or after he died?"

Sloan laughs. "After."

For some reason, that's the right thing to say. Geoffrey shakes his head a little and looks at the script. "Ah. Which is why it's 'A Grave Man.' Did you title it?"

"Nah. I wanted to call it 'Zombie Love-Fest,' but Oliver said no way." Sloan shrugs. "How's Ellen?"

Geoffrey takes a deep breath. "She's Ellen."

Sloan reaches across the desk and punches him in the shoulder. "Man, do I hear that."

"I'm sure you do, at that." Geoffrey nods. "I do have work to do."

"Sorry, man." Sloan gives him a thumbs-up. "Let me know if you like the play, okay?"

Geoffrey's smile looks like he's about to run out of the room, but he doesn't go anywhere. "Of course. Thank you."

"Peace," Sloan says, and leaves.

*

Sloan doesn't see Oliver again, plus Geoffrey doesn't call or anything, and he meets this girl, Julie, who's really cute and takes a lot of time.

He pretty much forgets about the play until there's some giant fucked-up thing at the theatre and the guys on the news are wondering if Geoffrey's lost it totally because he's out of a job again, and who knows what he did this time.

Sloan thinks about maybe calling Ellen, but he doesn't want to ask Ellen anything. A while later he gets a message on the machine.

"Sloan, it's Geoffrey. I read the script, and -- thank you. I know how much of a pain in the ass working with Oliver was, and --" he clears his throat. "I'm sure it meant a lot to him to have your help with this project. It meant a lot to me to have a chance to read it."

On the tape, Ellen's voice, tinny and staticky, says, "Geoffrey, who are you talking to?"

Geoffrey says, "Thanks," and hangs up. 


End file.
